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Blacklivesmatter As a Case Study in the Politics of Digital Media: Algorithms, Hashtag Publics, and Organizing Protest Online

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Blacklivesmatter As a Case Study in the Politics of Digital Media: Algorithms, Hashtag Publics, and Organizing Protest Online Teaching Media Quarterly Volume 4 | Issue 1 Article 5 2016 #BlackLivesMatter as A Case Study in the Politics of Digital Media: Algorithms, Hashtag Publics, and Organizing Protest Online Heather Woods University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, [email protected] James Alexander McVey University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://pubs.lib.umn.edu/tmq Recommended Citation Woods, Heather, and James A. McVey. "#BlackLivesMatter as A Case Study in the Politics of Digital Media: Algorithms, Hashtag Publics, and Organizing Protest Online." Teaching Media Quarterly 4, no. 1 (2016). http://pubs.lib.umn.edu/tmq/vol4/iss1/5 Teaching Media Quarterly is published by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. Woods and McVey: #BlackLivesMatter as A Case Study in the Politics of Digital Medi Teaching Media Quarterly Volume 4, Edition 1: Teaching BlackLivesMatter #BlackLivesMatter as A Case Study in the Politics of Digital Media: Algorithms, Hashtag Publics, and Organizing Protest Online Overview and Rationale The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was first circulated by Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, and Patrisse Cullors in the summer of 2013 in response to the unpunished death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman. By inaugurating this hashtag, these three black queer women gave voice to a burgeoning movement against the systemic anti-black racism facing their communities. The hashtag then circulated widely following the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO and Eric Garner in New York City, NY, as it was used by protesters, activists, and organizers to coordinate protests against racialized police violence both on the ground and in the digital sphere (Craven, 2015). By allowing strangers from across the country to collectively coordinate under the banner of #BlackLivesMatter, the hashtag campaign has given organizational coherence to a movement that is otherwise decentralized and lacking the same institutional structures previously required to organize large scale movements for racial equality. Social media became one of the main tools in the arsenals of #BlackLivesMatter protestors, allowing them to quickly organize protests, disseminate information to a wide audience, demand the attention of mainstream media, and join together with others interested in their cause (Stephen, 2015). Examining the media landscape of the #BlackLivesMatter movement thus provides students with a critical insight into the changing dynamics of social media use for online organization. Additionally, media studies scholarship provides students with a robust set of theories and concepts for analyzing the #BlackLivesMatter movement. This lesson plan is conceived of as a 1.5 - 2 week (4 class days) sequence in an “Introduction to Media Theory and Criticism” undergraduate course. The lesson plan is written as a combination of lectures, screenings, in-class assignments, and discussions of media artifacts and readings. We wrote this lesson plan to fit twice-weekly classes which last an hour and fifteen minutes, although much of the sequence below can be modularized to fit into other temporal configurations. The lesson is designed to fit into a course that takes a critical perspective on media theory, and helps students reflect on and understand their role as civic participants in a digitally mediated world. We ask students to consider the relationship between #BlackLivesMatter and the organizational, technological, and discursive dynamics of online activism. This lesson plan helps students understand the political effects of social media technologies and how the technological affordances of algorithms and social media platforms affect the prospects and risks of engaging in anti-racist political activism. In this lesson plan, #BlackLivesMatter serves as a critically important case study through which students learn about (1) the ways algorithms have political effects (Baker and Potts, 2013; Gillespie, 2015; Kirchner, 2015; Mager, 2012; Rambukkana 2015); (2) the constitution of online publics, (temporary collectives of strangers called together by the circulation of discourse such as the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter); and (3) the politics of organizing and acting together online. This approach situates #BlackLivesMatter within the historical tradition of black resistance movements while simultaneously using #BlackLivesMatter as a case study to grapple with contemporary debates in media studies about the utility and desirability of online activism in the Produced by University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing, 2016 1 Teaching Media Quarterly, Vol. 4 [2016], Iss. 1, Art. 5 H. Woods and J. McVey #BlackLivesMatter as a Case Study digital age. Therefore, in this lesson plan, we view #BLM as a digital movement campaign both rooted in material, corporeal struggle and organized and made possible by the affordances of new technology. By studying the function of algorithmic influence and the creation of online publics, students learn how increased digital connectivity and lower-entry costs for participants allow for (1) rapidly-circulating images and information and (2) the connection (and galvanization) of otherwise strangers into a powerful online and offline movement. However, as we and others note elsewhere (Tufekci, 2014; McVey and Woods, forthcoming) the rapid circulation that makes it easier to quickly organize large protests with hashtag campaigns also makes it more difficult to organize collective action in the long term. Further, because hashtags themselves are public, almost anyone can use them however they wish--perhaps even to the detriment to the original hashtag campaign. Therefore, when considering hashtag campaigns such as #BlackLivesMatter and the discursive publics formed around the hashtag, we invite students to carefully analyze both the benefits and risks to using online media to organize activism and protest. General Timeline Day 1 - Algorithms’ Social Sorting and the Political Affordances of Social Media Technology This day introduces students to the political dynamics of algorithms, how they contribute to social sorting, and how they affect what we see and discuss online. This week’s readings discuss, in particular, the ways racial, gendered, and class bias can be “baked into” algorithmic media. Students are asked to reflect about the ways supposedly-neutral algorithmic logics actually represent similar or the same biases in creating the “online” world as exist in the “offline” world. Instructors should also begin to introduce the idea that algorithmic logics, when understood and properly considered, can also be used to resist technological bias. Then, students apply these concepts to a discussion of #Ferguson, analyzing the role that algorithms played in the evolution of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Day 2 - Hashtags as Collective Action, Using Algorithms for Political Organization This day builds on the previous discussion of algorithms by introducing the concept of the “Hashtag Public” and by prompting students to think about how activism and political organization changes when it moves online. Students are called on to use #BlackLivesMatter as a case study for analyzing internal debates within media studies about the possibilities and pitfalls of political organizing IRL (“In Real Life”) vs the digital sphere. Instructors should make clear that, especially in the context of #BlackLivesMatter, both the embodied action of protesters and their online/social media use contributed to the success and powerful reverberations of the movement. As Zeynep Tufekci writes about “People-Powered Uprisings:” “There has been a false debate. Was it social media or the people? Was it social media or the labor movements? Was it social media or anti-imperialist movement? Was it social media or youth? These questions are wrong and the answer is yes. The correct question is how.” We encourage instructors to think of how the dynamics Tufekci describes might apply to the context of #BLM. Day 3 - #BLM, Filter Bubbles and the Creation of Publics/Counterpublics 2 http://pubs.lib.umn.edu/tmq/vol4/iss1/5 2 Woods and McVey: #BlackLivesMatter as A Case Study in the Politics of Digital Medi H. Woods and J. McVey #BlackLivesMatter as a Case Study This day calls on students to think about the role that algorithms and filter bubbles play in the formation of publics and counterpublics in regard to Ferguson and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Students discuss the consequences of digital segregation for online discussions of race by looking at how news about #Ferguson was algorithmically filtered for different publics. Students are prompted to think about how divisions of identity such as race, class, and gender are reproduced and reinforced technologically through the use of algorithms. Day 4 - Hijacking Hashtags: #HandsUpDontShoot / #PantsUpDontLoot This day examines one of the dangers of using hashtags to organize online: hashtag hijacking. Here, students will learn about the ways that various groups have attempted to hijack the hashtags of the #BLM movement in order to defend police violence against black bodies, circulate antiblack representations, and criticize protesters. Students will read about the role of media racism in depictions of looting, and then read about how anti-#BLM social media users hijacked #HandsUpDontShoot with #PantsUpDontLoot in order to circulate racist representations of anti-police brutality protesters. Students will then compile tweets in a Storify or Excel document
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